Valluvarkottam: A Monument for a Poet

Steaming weather, roaring traffic, infectiously enthusiastic people, and tradition layered with 
cosmopolitan glamour, diverse neighborhood, friendly people – this is Chennai. It is my passion and ever burning desire to visit places of historical interest. It is an indispensible part of all my tours.

During my recent short visit to Chennai for some personal work, I had an opportunity to visit a very interesting place. After finishing our work we were left with a few hours to spare. We thought of visiting Huddleston Gardens of Theosophical Society in Adyar, which houses an oriental library and a small museum. But we had to drop the idea due to the distance from our place of stay to Adyar and also the heavy traffic in that route. While exploring the nearby interesting places, we came to know about Valluvarkottam. Quickly we took a cab and reached in 15 minutes.

Valluvarkottam is a historical monument built in 1976 in the honour of the well-known Tamil poet Tiruvalluvar who composed Thirukkural more than 2000 years ago. Historians believe that Kural was composed by Valluvar during 3rd Sangam period and is anterior to the Tamil epics, Shilappadigaram and Manimekhalai as they have references to a few couplets from Kural in them.

Tirukkural consists of 1330 couplets arranged in 133 chapters, each chapter having 10 couplets. Each couplet (in Kannada Dwipadi- two line poetry) has four words in the 1st line and three words in the second line.133 chapters are divided into three cantos (sections into which a long poem is divided). Scholars are of the view that these divisions are based on four Purusharthas (Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha).  Valluvar focuses on only the first three purusharthas in Kural- Virtue, Wealth and Passion. This reminded me of Bhatrhari’s trishatakas - Sringara, Neeti and, Vairagya shatakas which are related to personal life, social life and spirituality.

Valluvarkottam temple is dedicated to Tiruvalluvar and is built in the shape of a stone chariot (39 m high), the octagonal sanctum is located at the height of 30 ft and consists of the life size image of Valluvar. There is a huge auditorium in front of the chariot temple. One has to climb a few steps from the auditorium to reach the terrace that connects the sanctum of Tiruvalluvar. The stone chariot has four magnificently carved wheels- 2 big at the ends and 2 small in the middle. The auditorium is very unique. It is very spacious to accommodate 4000 people at a time and is constructed without any supporting pillars or columns. When we visited, the new interior work was going on.

The most interesting and unique feature of Valluvarkottam is 1330 verses of the epic

Thirukkural that are engraved on the granite columns in the facade hall corridors, enclosing the vast auditorium called Kural Balcony. Interestingly three different colored granite stones have been used to represent three cantos of Kural. The first section (Chapter 1-38, 380 couplets) dealing with dharma is engraved on black granite, the second section (Chapter 39-108, 700 couplets) dealing with Artha inscribed on grey granite and the third section (Chapter 109-133, 250 couplets) dealing with love and passion are inscribed on red granite. The design of granite slab is also unique- it appears like the leaf of an open book.

Here is a photo of Thirukkural couplet displayed in French in a train in France. It also mentions the name of Thiruvalluvar. 

 http://outshine-ga-ga.blogspot.in/2012/08/thirukural-displayed-in-french-in.html 

Gandhiji said that he had learnt Tamil only to enable him to study Thiruvalluvar’s Kural through his mother tongue itself. He also said, there is none who has given such a treasure of wisdom like him.  It is interesting to note that Gandhiji came to know of Thirukkural, through Leo Tolstoy, the Russian Philosopher and writer. In 1908 Tolstoy wrote a letter titled “A letter to a Hindu”. The letter was later translated and published by Mahatma Gandhiji with an introduction.

http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/2733/ 

This great monumental tribute to the poet will be more meaningful, if the auditorium is used for literary activities instead of using for exhibitions. While going around the granite columns, we were taken aback and were disappointed to see pan stains on them. It was horrifying to see people indiscriminately spitting on the inscribed holy Kural verses, which is nothing but a disrespect to the great sage. The corridors are very badly maintained and are public facilities stinking. The security arrangement is made only to look after the temple chariot and the sanctum. When asked the security and others, they told that people go there only to see the chariot and the statue, hardly anybody enquires the inscribed stones. We had to literally search for the entry point to reach the Kural Balcony.

Kural has been translated into almost all languages of the world. L.Gundappa who was a professor of Kannada in Mysore University has translated Kural into Kannada in 1960 (not the first person to translate though).

The most important features of Thirukkural are: it is secular in nature- Valluvar has not mentioned the name of any religion, it is universal and everlasting and its messages transcend time. Right from the first and till the end of Thirukkural, Thiruvalluvar has avoided a regional approach – he has never used the word Tamil or Tamilnadu. Thiruvalluvar belonged to a world two thousand years ago, which was divided into many kingdoms who were into many battles and conflicts. But Thiruvalluvar has dreamt of an ideal world and his suggestions and advices are a boon to our age to guide us to shape a wonderful new world.

At the end of the day we felt so blessed that our hearts filled with satisfaction of spending our time usefully.